Cait's Cradle
by Lady Aoi
Summary: Reeve questions his role in Shinra... with a little help from his friends. Rated PG-13 for language, dark themes, some *mild* slash implications (and an unpopular pairing!). Some Cait Sith spoilers.


Cait's Cradle

A Final Fantasy 7 Fan Fiction

By

Lady Aoi

Summary: Reeve questions his role in Shinra with a little help from his "friends".

Rating: PG-13 for mature themes.

Disclaimer: They really aren't mine… ya know? And like… stuff. Yeah. Square owns Reeve and Cait Sith. And his little mog too.

Spoilers: Uh… if you don't know why Cait is in a Reeve fic then you really shouldn't read it. I know most of you are cool and have finished ff7 by now. Those who haven't, however, may not want to have the surprise ruined.

Lady Aoi's Notes: AVALANCHE has really bugged me for a long time. And so has Reeve's reaction to them. *shrug*. Anyway, I wanted to show that, just like some real life things now (see the above date to know what I mean), conflicts are often far more complex then they appear. And there are always two sides to any story.

~*~

"Well, darkness has a hunger that's insatiable

And lightness has a call that's hard to hear…"

                        ~ Indigo Girls "Closer to Fine"

~*~

            You wouldn't know it looking at me, but I wasn't always so well off. I know it's hard, seeing past the blue suit   and clean-cut hair to the man beneath. Sometimes even I forget what I really look like underneath it all.

            That is, until I pull out the old photo albums. Flipping through the pages, I don't see a man in a suit or any man at all, for that matter. No, just a few pictures of my Mom, Roquelle and my two brothers… the tall guy on the left is Squire. He died during the war. And the baby I'm holding is Sexton... we never really got along. Even less so after…after it happened. Last I heard from him, he was still running that weapons store in Gongaga. He says he still tends Mom's grave. I admire him for that because, lord knows, I don't feel worthy.  

            I'm really not sure what I'm feeling right now… aside from feeling a little bit crazy. Maybe it's the brandy. Or the heat. Or the fact I haven't slept a wink for the past three nights. Or maybe it's because I'm sitting on my couch at three thirty a.m. talking about my family life with a stuffed cat. A stuffed cat that could talk back to me in my own voice if I just pressed this button…

            I'm sorry, Cait… that wasn't fair. God, listen to me….I think I need another drink. Or maybe four. Then I won't mind talking to you. Then I won't feel like some demented Gepetto. Then maybe I won't feel so alone and I'll be able to just fall into bed and wake up in time to call and say I won't be in tomorrow.

 I don't think I've really been in for a very long time.

            When I was a little boy, I used to believe that my toy soldiers had thoughts and feelings, just like real people. Maybe that's why I never liked playing war. Just the sight of them laying there, with their legs and hands torn off, or burnt to a plastic lump by some little boy's magnifying glass… everyone used to call me a sissy. They were right. I can't hurt a fly. I can't hurt a toy soldier, even. And yet today I hurt a lot of people, Cait. And they weren't toys. They had thoughts and feelings and real legs and hands. And that bomb melted them better than any magnifying glass could ever do. They died in there, Cait; trapped beneath mountains of stone and endless mazes of twisting metal.  I wonder if that's how Squire died, crushed under some fallen structure and just sitting there praying while he felt death itself drying him out. I know they cried for their families. I know they prayed, too. As surely as I know they're being sucked dry beneath that mountain of steal… that mountain that used to be nothing more than a design, just like you, Cait. Because I drafted Section 7 the same day I drafted you…

            I wonder if I thought they were my toys too… because even toys have feelings…

            And I will be judged for breaking them.

            I'm crying again. Once a sissy, always a sissy I guess.  It's hard to look at you. Maybe I've lost my mind at last… it happens to everyone around here, eventually. Hojo, Scarlet, Heidegger, Palmer… everyone here is insane. Especially me. Because I knew… I *knew* what Shinra was going to do! And I just stood by my window and watched as he… as I blew it up. All those people… they weren't my toys, Cait! So why did I do it?! What the hell was I thinking?!

            If I didn't already have enough blood on my hands, I think I'd slit my wrists with this bottle opener. Maybe then no one else would have to die… would you miss me, Cait? Would you miss listening to Gepetto ramble like this?

            But I was telling you my story. No. I was telling you my confession. You know, I put a crown and cape on you because of that old saying… you know the one. "A cat may look at a king". In retrospect, maybe I should have dressed you as a priest… with a little red robe and a little kitty miter.. haha. God knows I talk to you more than I've ever talked to a priest… maybe it's because you're such a good listener. Just like Cat was… but I haven't told you about Cat yet… 

            Cat was my very first pet. My only pet. Sometimes I think I'd like to have another one. But I'm away all day at work – more so after this… tragedy—and the poor thing would be lonely without me… I'll be damned if I'd make it suffer, either. 

            I was on my way home from school one day when I found some bullies torturing a kitten. Her little paw was trapped in some barbed wire, and instead of helping her, they thought it would be funny to throw rocks. I don't know how I did it – I wasn't strong or brave enough to challenge anyone to a fight, least of all three boys who weighed 30 pounds more than I did. I guess it was my screaming that did it in the end. If you're beaten up almost every week, you do learn how to scream. It's your only weapon. Your only choice. Yes… my screaming scared them off, and it scared the kitten, too. So I had to just sit there and talk to her until she calmed down enough to let me free her paw. And by then it was so mangled she had to have it amputated. And what use was a three legged cat to anyone but me? My family didn't want me to, but I kept her… and I named her Cat. I wasn't very creative then and I guess I'm not all that creative now now. Your name basically means the same thing, you know, in some ancient language or other. It just seemed… fitting, I suppose.

            But I was telling you a story… hold on. You might want to let Moggy hear this, too. He is your friend, after all. Yes… I'll just press this button and have him sit down beside you. You two are a team, remember. So I want you to be on equal footing. And you won't be if he's all the way across the room…

            Sector Seven's still burning, though. I can see it through the window. It's… I'm going to just press this button now, Moggy, and have you close the drapes. Because I – I just can't think about it now. It feels like I'm reliving the whole thing again… and if I do that, I won't be able to tell you… I won't be able to think – to really *think* this through like a rational human being. Provided I can still call myself one after today…

            But Cat… I was telling you both about Cat.

            For all intents and purposes, Cat was my only friend growing up. Oh, sure I had Squire, but he was ten years older than I and no one could really cajole him into playing with me. And I already told you what the rest of the boys in town thought. I was a wimp. I was a freak. I was probably also a queer. Heh. They were right about that, at least. And let's just say their opinions of me didn't change for the better upon seeing me wandering around town with a ratty, three-legged cat following in my wake. But I didn't care. I had a best friend at last. And a best friend who really listened to me, too. Wow. What more could a little nine-year-old ask for, huh?

            Even then I knew… I knew that something was deeply wrong with the world. While most boys went to bed worrying about what they'd play tomorrow after school, I went to bed worrying if our town would even *have* a tomorrow. I wasn't ignorant or apathetic. I saw through the adults' tense and all-too-wide smiles to the fear beneath. They didn't want us to know it, but our town was dying. The harvest hadn't been great for the last few years. And from the looks of things that March, this wasn't exactly going to be a bumper year, either. We were nothing but a village of poor farmers dreaming of making enough money from our crops to raise our families and send our children to school. And we'd barely managed to do either since the drought began. 

            I think it was around this time that I began to notice the misery around me. The hunger, the decay, the misery… the abject misery, Cait… thin, pale parents who watched their children eat a meager lunch hollow, worried eyes… animals and beggars fighting over rats and mice…and everything coated in a layer of dirt and decay.

            My god, it was terrible. Why did we have to live that way, Cait? Why should any one… any living thing… have to live that way? I asked Cat this question every night as we shared my dinner together. We were in a contest, it seemed, to see who could get thinner and weaker. And I was bound and determined to win, because I gave her nearly all of my meat every night and gratefully watched her slick it up. Grateful because my one friend in the world wouldn't die of starvation as we snuggled under my tattered blanket, and grateful because she would be there in the morning to walk me to the door. Squire thought I was crazy. Maybe he was right. But Cat was… you know, sometimes I think animals are better than people. They don't judge. They don't steal. They don't generally kill their own kind. And they love unconditionally.

            It may sound strange, but I think Cat was the only… I think Cat loved me unconditionally. And I loved her just as much in return.

            That was why it….

            Why it….

            Excuse me for a moment, Cait. I need a tissue.

            God, I really am glad you're not real. I'm glad you can't talk without my voice because I'm already feeling stupid enough about this. Thousands of people died today, and here I am crying over a cat that… a cat *who* died twenty years ago.

            In retrospect, I should have seen it coming. Animals were disappearing all over the place. Cattle, chickens… even pets. So it was only a matter of time before I came home to a Catless house one day after school. At first I thought she'd just gone out to hunt for mice. But when it started to get dark and she hadn't returned, I began to get worried. And I became more and more worried when two days, five days, a week, a month passed and she hadn't come home. I went out looking for her every night, but I never found her. Gongaga hardly had any animals left and as for cats… there were no cats to be found anywhere.

            After the second month, my resolve failed and I gave up looking through the grey morning mists for her little black face and her bright green eyes. I cried myself to sleep almost every night, tormented by increasingly grisly visions of her death. Sometimes I still wake up crying, just like I'm crying now.

            Cait… would you mind if I… If I hugged you? If I just put you in my lap and rubbed your head for awhile?. Cat loved it when I did that and I….

            Thanks. I knew you'd understand.

            I was ten when I stopped crying and ten when I first realized there was another way. That was the day a big Shinra truck pulled into Gongaga with two big men. One a silly, older man who danced around more than a grown man probably should have. The other was a fierce-looking brooding giant with a large scar over his right eye. I was immediately fascinated by them, even more so when they introduced our village elders to a new word; Mako.

            Mako was the way of the future, the man named Palmer explained with a few loud "hey hey!"s. I remember hiding behind Squire's legs and peeking around his thigh. Strangely, Palmer somewhat frustrated me, but the man named Heidegger did not. He must have noticed my frustration, because he nudged Palmer in the side and muttered something to him. Either Heidegger was a bit too loud, or I had unusually good hearing. Either way, I distinctly remember hearing him say: "Tubby, you're assing the pitch up as usual. I'm doing it from here." Palmer blushed and muttered an apology before stepping aside. But despite Heidegger's harsh words, I knew he wasn't angry at his partner. Even then I suspected he had a soft spot for this large grey-haired man. But it took me almost ten years to truly begin to fathom the nature and depth of that mutual affection.

            "Gyahahahahaha! Alright, listen up," Heidegger said to us. "My name's General Heidegger, and this is my partner, Matthew Palmer."

"I already said my name, Heiddy," Palmer whimpered.

            Heidegger's eyes narrowed slightly as he turned to his partner. "I told you not to call me that," he growled. Yes. I suppose that was my first clue.

            Palmer just continued looking uncomfortable as Heidegger turned back to us. "We represent the Shinra Electric Company, and we're here today to tell you about Mako Reactors."

            As Heidegger continued to talk, I remember my eyes getting bigger and bigger as my heart began to pound faster and faster. It all seemed… no. It all *was* so easy! With a Mako Reactor, we'd have all the power we'd ever need… and money, too! So what if our crops never came back? We could all work at the reactor and have all the money we'd ever need to buy our food, raise our families and send the kids to school! Now, I was a quiet boy, but as Heidegger finished his speech about the virtues and cost-effectiveness of clean, pure Mako energy (a speech I myself gave many times), I found myself silently cheering him on.

            The rest of Gongaga, however, wasn't so enthusiastic.

            In fact, they quite literally chased Palmer and Heidegger out of town. To this day, Palmer does not like being reminded of clambering into the truck screaming at his partner to "start the dang thing already, Heiddy, before they hit me in the butt with a really big rock!" Heidegger, on the other hand, enjoys being reminded of a day ten years after that time, when a young high school graduate showed up in his office with a job application.

            "General Heidegger, sir?" I said.

The dark-hared man glanced up from his paper work. "If you've got an application, you can leave it with my secretary."

            Not wanting to offend the General, but wanting to tell him who I was, I offered him my hand. "Of course, sir. My -- My name is Reeve. Reeve Calhoun."

            Heidegger looked up at me again. "And you can take your application to my secretary, Reeve Calhoun. Unless… what? Someone sent you here?"

            It was an in, and I took it. "No, sir. But sir… I – you may not know me, but we have met before."

            "I don't like guessing games, Calhoun."

            "Of course not sir," Cait, I was stuttering all over myself. I was in the presence of  *the* Klaus Heidegger! The man who had changed my life a decade ago with his speech about Mako reactors. Since then, I had begged my mother to send me to an engineering school, so I could learn how to repair and operate the things. Oh, yes. I wanted to not only make a good impression, I wanted to… well, I wanted what most young men want in their early careers. I wanted a mentor.

            Thankfully the rest of the meeting went much better. Heidegger seemed interested that I remembered him from ten years ago. He was even more impressed with my credentials and hired me on the spot. In the next few months, I had everything I had wanted for the last ten years. I was working on a reactor design team and even more. Heidegger had, indeed, taken me under his wing. I was not only his hardest worker, I was also his favorite. In fact, he praised my work to President Shinra with such frequency that Palmer became slightly jealous… and more than slightly suspicious. But before I knew it, I was back in Gongaga meeting with the town elders about installing a mako reactor. The leaders were younger this time, more willing to take risks. And they acquiesced almost immediately. Construction on the Gongaga reactor began the next day – with me as the project's supervisor.

            I couldn't have been happier. I had it all, right, Cait? Money. Power. Prestige. Respect. Attention. Acclaim.. the boys who had enjoyed torturing me as a child now called me Mr. Calhoun as they bowed politely in my presence. Only my younger brother Sexton seemed disenchanted. 'You're backing the wrong horse, Reeve,' he'd say. And I'd simply laugh at shake my head. Idealistic Sexton, the village malcontent, the village idiot, the village cat doctor for god's sake! What did he know about my work? About what I was trying to do for our good – for humanity's good!

            I suppose, Cait, he knew far more than I did. A year after the project's completion, I received a most horrifying telephone call. The Gongaga reactor – my reactor – had suffered a melt down. The entire village…. 

            The names of the dead were read. Our neighbor Binx, the milkman Carl, my teacher Ms. Weiss…

            Roquelle Calhoun….

            My mother….

            Of course, I was given the day off for her funeral. But I didn't attend. I couldn't show my face. My home town, still toxic green with mako… some of its inhabitants poisoned for life. And why?

            A design fault… an elementary one…. I should have noticed the crack in the core's wall… the Mako ate right through it and….

            Sexton called me a murderer and a matricide before spitting in my face. I didn't even wipe my cheek.

            I was not demoted but Heidegger no longer wanted to be associated with me. I'm sure Palmer was relieved. I, on the other hand, locked myself in this room and drank for a week straight. And then I received the news I was to be transferred to something safer… building cities… renovating Midgar… something where I wouldn't be able to kill anyone, I assumed.

            And I – I threw my heart into the project. I would build the best, the sturdiest Midgar! I would do something to preserve and improve life… but the Mako… Cait, I didn't realize the Mako was the problem… it is poisonous and harmful and it's…. it's killing us all…

            God…. All those people… all those people who had to die just to get me to see…

            I'm sorry. I stained your fur with my… I'll clean it up in a minute. I don't have much more to tell, anyway. Except that you and Moggy need to look your very best from now on. Because I've been…

            I've been ordered to spy on AVALANCHE, Cait. Apparently, the Turks can't keep up with them anymore, so Rufus wants this to be an inside job. And I can't... they would suspect me in a moment if I tried to join them. And if I were to, I can't promise I wouldn't…

            So you see, Cait. You and Moggy have to do this for me… I'll miss you when you leave, but I'll be right behind you, controlling your every move, making sure you're safe.

            I won't let them eat you alive this time, Cait… 

            Alright, Moggy. You can open the drapes now.

            Yes… it's still burning….

            Come on, Cait. Let's all look at it together. This is what I want to avoid. I know I can't resurrect the people I've killed. And I can't wash the blood from my hands either…

            But I still believe… that I can do some good for humanity. Does that mean aiding AVALANCHE? Does that mean turning them in to Shinra? …. AVALANCHE kills people, too. They destroyed Sector One a week ago. I don't know. Terrorists always say it's different. That they're fighting for freedom, for life, for… but in the end a dead body is a dead body. It can't think, it can't cry, it can't love… and all the idealism in the world really doesn't matter. 

            But who do I….

            How do I fix this? How do I keep more people from dying?

            I don't know. I've never known how to save anyone, I suppose. 

            I only know, as we look at the ruined sector together for what may very well be the last time for quite awhile, that I have to try… that I have to look beyond my suit and money to my humanity beneath. 

            You aren't the puppets, Cait. Moggy. The real puppet is standing next to you.

            And he can't even pull his own strings.

~ (Fin)


End file.
